


scars upon scars

by heyimal_ex



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, can be read as romantic or platonic idc, larry and sal friendship, protective larry, sal angst, sal gets beaten up, sal gets hurt, travis is painted as a pretty bad person here but i don’t actually dislike him in the game lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 00:27:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17436374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyimal_ex/pseuds/heyimal_ex
Summary: sally knew something felt off that morning when he walked into school, but he didn’t exactly expect things to end up like this. an hour later, while leaning against the bathroom stall and taking punch after punch from travis, he wished he had just stayed home.(this includes a lot of sal and larry bonding/friendship, it can be read as platonic or romantic, whichever you prefer!)





	scars upon scars

sal was never quite scared of travis. sure, he was a bitch to deal with, and he made his blood boil when he went from insulting his facial deformities to insulting his friends (sal was pretty sure he almost passed out from anger once when the bully was talking about larry) but besides the bursts of teenage aggression and the feelings travis had - quite literally - shoved in the closet causing for him to lash out at every possible moment, he was manageable. he was understandable. sal even had a level of sympathy for him, when he wasn’t touching the people sal cared about. 

he was never scared of travis, just annoyed over his actions. but sal had always, sadly, had a natural detection for bad happenings ; if something bad was going to happen soon, a feeling as heavy as a rock would settle in his stomach and refuse to leave. 

that morning, he woke up feeling nauseous. he rolled over to check his phone and saw three separate texts, one from larry, one from ash, and one from todd. all informed him that they wouldn’t be attending school today. larry was because he had smoked too much too late last night, and knew he wouldn’t be able to act quite normal enough around teachers to pass. todd was because he was sick with a head cold. ash was because she had caught a sickness from todd. 

sal groaned as he reached over, performing his typical morning ritual of popping in his eye. he would be completely alone today - chug had gotten a stomach virus he was still recovering from, and Maple was on a family vacation. sal had other friends, but none that he knew well enough to just randomly crash with during lunch. 

oh well, he thought, pointedly ignoring the stab that was inflicting itself into his subconscious. he could handle being alone for the day. his old friends in jersey had ditched him all the time, so having a good old blast to the past wouldn’t do him much harm, would it?

he sent some quick texts to larry, ash and todd, wishing the last two a fast recovery and poking endless fun at larry for his poor time management. within a few minutes, he was out of the house, a bag of cheerios thrown haphazardly into his bag. he refused to eat the school lunch after what happened, and his father was out of state, so the only food available was some stale cereal resting towards the back of the cupboard. it would do. 

the walk to school was lonely, but manageable with the aid of his headphones and his music blasting. he kept his head down as he entered school, hoping for a quick and painless day. 

one can dream, anyways. he was barely four steps in when he felt a grip close in around his arm. the air was knocked out of him as his back slammed into the lockers, a sick smile stretched across travis’ face as he loomed over him. 

sal felt something sink in his stomach. travis’ eyes were fuzzy, his hands were shaking, and he looked completely zoned out. something was wrong. 

normally, sal would retort with some smart comment, some low jab at travis’ amazingly shaky ego, but this time, the words got stuck in his tongue. he needed to get out. don’t mess with travis, don’t cause anything, don’t bait a fight, just get out. 

considering the fact that sal’s natural inkling had literally saved him from deadly demons before, he decided to listen to it, and carefully slipped out of travis’ grip. without saying a word, he walked away, gripping the straps of his backpack as he headed to first period. 

he could feel travis’ gaze burning a hole into his back, and he couldn’t stop the shiver that crept up his spine. 

halfway through first period, he asked to be excused to the bathroom. settling into his sitting position atop the toilet, he slipped his phone out of his backpack and sent larry a quick text. 

sal : something’s wrong with travis 

larry’s response was almost immediate. he was probably scrolling on his phone anyways, sal thought with a snort. 

larry : what do u mean is he threatening u

sal : not rly but i can just tell something’s off w him

larry : do u need to come home or do u need help

sal : no i’m fine, i just think we should check it out sometime soon

larry : ok keep me updated if anything happens

sal sighed, his head tipping back as he let his hand fall limp to his side, phone still gripped tightly. he wished he were home with larry, head banging and not worrying about the stupid school bully - but sally face of all people had learned quickly in life that wishes weren’t always granted. he was cruelly reminded of this when the bathroom door swung open, and the grumbles of the annoyed man entering the bathroom were clearly identifiable as the school bully himself. 

sal quickly picked up his phone and sent one last text. 

sal : how do i manage to have the worst luck ever. i’m in the br and he just walked in

larry : u good?

before sal could even type a confirmation, the door to his stall slammed open. he must have forgotten to lock it, since he wasn’t actually going to the bathroom - it would’ve been funny if anyone other than travis had been standing in front of him. 

but he wasn’t that lucky, and the look that travis was giving him would kill a man weaker than sal. the shaking in his eyes had traveled to his entire body, and to say he looked unstable would be an understatement. travis looked truly insane, and sal wondered in the back of his mind if the man had finally cracked from stress. 

“sally face.” travis laughed, all the warmth that larry and his other friends said that nickname with devoid and dead on the bullies tongue. sal was, quite literally, trapped. he couldn’t run by travis ; the boy was pretty big, and his body managed to completely cover the skinny bathroom stall entrance. slipping underneath into another stall would take way too much time, and travis could just move over to block his exit anyways. 

sal watched the idea arise in travis’ head, and before he could do anything to stop it, hands had circled around his prosthetic and thrown it straight off. not only did it hurt, since the clips in the back had dug their way into his skull before coming undone, but sal also found himself shaking with the knowledge that his face was completely visible. 

four people had seen his face. his father, larry, todd, and ash. all people he trusted. all people he loved. 

now travis was a part of that club. but he had never been invited. he simply took what he wanted and cared little or not at all about the pains of other people. 

a sneer crept across travis’ face, and before sal could dive for his prosthetic back, a fist had collided with his face. he stumbled back, groaning in pain as his eye popped out and rolled across the floor. “shit.” he groaned, as travis just laughed cruelly behind him and threw his mask as hard as possible on to the tiled ground. he probably hoped to break it, but the mask was resilient, and had suffered much worse damage than that before without cracking. 

“no wonder you hide your scars, sally face.” travis reached out, gripping sal’s chin with a hold that left his jaw aching. “if i had to look at you every day, i think i’d kill myself in a week. i’m surprised whoever did this to you didn’t finish you off. i’m even more surprised you didn’t finish yourself off after it happened.”

sal worked up his strength and shoved the other away as hard as possible. he had to get away, had to get away, travis was acting fucking crazy and he wasn’t sure what the others plan was, he could die and he had to get away-

a hand gripped his shirt, raising him up slightly from the floor. sals thin legs kicked desperately ; he wished more than anything that he wasn’t a small person and had just a bit more body mass to slam into the other with. hot breath puffed against his face as travis hissed out his words with barely contained anger. 

“i’m so sick and fucking tired of people fighting me on everything. you think a freak like you has a right to touch me? i’ll beat you into a fucking pulp. i’ll make it so that that fucking mask won’t be able to hide your deformities anymore. i’ll ruin whatever skin you have left.”

when sal was thrown back, his head hit the toilet with a sickening thump, and his vision began to swim unsteadily. he tried to get up, but a fist to the stomach immediately forced him back on his knees. hands gripped his hair and forced him to be standing as more fists collided with his body, refusing to let him crumple to the ground. at some point, a knife came out - who the fuck gave this little psychopath a knife? - and he felt the blade trace across his collarbone and upper arms. he was screaming for help now, but he knew no one would come. not in nockfell. 

sal realized, with a lurched feeling of nausea, that he could very well die that day. travis clearly had experienced some sort of mental break ; between his fathers forced expectation of normality, his sick coping methods, and all the thoughts and feelings that had swirled around his head in regards to the blue haired-boy in the back of the class, travis had lost it. 

he had to get to sal. whether it was romantic or murderous, he needed to be near the boy. he needed to do something, anything. 

sal was barely conscious when travis shakily lifted up the knife, a sick laugh bubbling up his throat as the blade traveled down swiftly and smoothly in the direction of sal’s chest. reeling his head back and squeezing shut his eyelids, sally prepared for impact. 

what a shitty way to die. it was probably what sal deserved. 

the pain that he expected never came, and with a whoosh of air forcing its way from his lungs, he fell from where he had been held up. he groaned as his ass hit the floor, and forced his eye open to see what had happened. 

in front of sal, travis lay against the bathroom wall, out of the stall and away from him. larry loomed over the body, fists slamming down into his face again and again. sals best friend seemed to be in a murderous rage - he was screaming, cussing him out, calling him the scum of the earth. sal was almost scared ; he had never seen his other half behaving like that. 

“he’s got a knife, lar.” he called out, his voice clearer than it usually is thanks to the mask being disregarded somewhere out of reach. “let’s just go.” he forced himself on to his feet, using the rim of the toilet for support, but immediately began to wobble with instability. his entire body ached, his stomach and head especially, and he wished he could just erase everything he was feeling and go home with larry. 

within a few moments, however, an arm was looped under his, the familiar smell of this friends house and cologne (from hot topic) hitting his nose. “hey, you okay?” larry asked, pulling back only slightly to examine the other. sal could barely keep his eyelids open (and, after remembering the fact that his eye wasn’t in and not wanting to force larry to look at that, he just closed them anyways). 

“i’ll be fine, but you gotta do something kinda gross for me bro.”

larry’s eyebrows furrowed. “what is it?”

“can you uh...find my eye? it popped out along the way and my other one is kinda swollen right now. also, everything hurts and i’d just like to avoid leaning down in general.”

sal didn’t get an answer, but larry guided him so that he was sitting against the stall wall again. sal kept his eyes closed and let his head tilt to the side as an overwhelming feeling of sleepiness took over his body ; he supposed he hadn’t realized how badly he had been panicking until he actually calmed down. a few brief moments of shuffling passed before a prosthetic mask was being pushed into his left hand, the cool curve of his eyeball into the other. 

“may wanna wash that before you put it back in.” larry joked gently, kneeling in front of the other and helping him to clasp on his mask. “we’re gonna go back home, so we’re gonna have to walk. do you think you can make it that far on your own two feet?”

feeling rather defeated, sal shook his head sadly. “i’m feeling lightheaded.” he admitted softly. “if i try to stand for too long i may faint.”

“okay.” larry’s answer was immediate, and before sal could finish it, two arms were tucking their way under his body and scooping him up. he squeaked at first, small protests leaving his lips, before melting into the touch ; being so close to his best friend gave him the level of comfort that he really needed that day. if he had any more strength within him he would be yelling his protests, but all he wanted was to fall asleep. he couldn’t be bothered anymore. 

“we’re goin home.” was the last thing he heard larry say before his consciousness faded away, exhaustion and the dull ache of bruises settling into his bones and causing for his body to sink into larry’s arms. as he slept, he breathed in time with his friend’s soothing heartbeat. 

when sal came to, his first instinct was to bury himself into the pillow underneath him and sleep for forty more years. his head was pounding, his body ached, and everything just felt slightly off. peeling open one eye, a sense of immediate panic entered him when he realized he couldn’t see the familiar rim of his mask around his vision. his prosthetic. where was his prosthetic?

“oh, good. you’re awake.” the bed dipped next to him, and sal’s head tipped to connect eyes with larry. his friend had a glass of water in his hand and one look at his face showed a clear layer of worry across his features. “you were sleeping for a while. kinda stressed me out.” he laughed awkwardly, reaching forward with a wet cloth and pressing it against a particularly gnarly wound across sal’s collarbone. sal couldn’t help the thin hiss of pain that slipped past his lips. 

“some of these are gonna have to be looked after pretty close. they’re deep enough to get infected.” with each word, larry’s eyes grew darker. it was the angriest sal had possibly ever seen him. “i hope you realize i’m gonna kill him. like, actual murder kill him.”

sal shook his head, looking at the other. “don’t. it won’t fix much.”

“he could’ve killed you, sal. he’s going like, fucking crazy. the look in his eyes...he didn’t look like him.”

sal nodded quickly. “the kid snapped. i feel bad. i wonder what kind of pressure he’s under. he’s always been unstable but it takes a lot of stress to go from some minor punching to pulling out a knife.”

larry shrugged. “he’s always been obsessed with you. but you’re seriously not going back to school when he’s still there.”

“he didn’t even get suspended?”

“nope. my mom had to argue the school out of giving us detentions for ‘skipping’. she explained the situation but they said there wasn’t anything they could do. bullshit. i hate living in such a corrupt town.”

sal hummed, but his eyes were already drifting closed again. “mind if i go back to sleep? i feel like i haven’t slept in years.”

larry nodded, and sal felt a pair of fingers intertwining with his. almost subconsciously, he squeezed, enjoying the comfort of feeling larry so close. 

“i love you, man. i’m so happy i got there when i did and so mad i didn’t get there sooner. don’t know what i would do if travis had stabbed you or some shit. i promise to be here to protect you from now on.” sal didn’t pick up on the thickness behind larry’s voice as he struggled not to let a few tears drop. seeing the person he loved most beaten and laying near unconscious against a gross bathroom stall wall had done nothing but destroy him. 

when larry had brought him home, he first made sure the other was comfortable, addressed his wounds, and then cried for a few minutes. the events of the day overwhelmed him and seeing sal - sal fisher, his sal fisher - laying in the bed looking so small and weak had hurt his heart in a way he didn’t know was possible. opting to keep the prosthetic off so that the other could breath, he sat by his best friends side and spent half an hour just running his hands through the other’s hair and listening to his rhythmic breathing. when sal had finally woken up, it felt like a thousands tons of weight being lifted off of his shoulders. he had to fight back the urge to collect the other in a tight hug. 

sal hummed softly, not bothering to open his eyes. “i shouldn’t need the protecting.” he muttered, an amount of self-hatred and judgment shining through the furrow of his eyebrows. 

“don’t say shit like that. everyone needs help sometimes. who cares. you’re still the strongest guy i know.” larry’s hand wrapped around his shoulder and gave a comforting squeeze before his presence left the bed all together, leaving sal hugging the blanket closer to his body to replace the missing warmth. “go to bed, man. i think todd and ash are coming over later, i’ll wake you up when they get here. until then, get all the sleep you can.”

sal hummed, bruised arms reaching around the pillow and squeezing it tightly to his face. “thanks man. for being such an amazing friend.”

“you deserve everything and more, sally face. goodnight.”

“goodnight, larry face.”

three hours later, ash and todd arrived at the front door. larry cautiously slipped sals prosthetic around his face, but didn’t bother waking him up. the group of friends sat down in larry’s room, keeping their voice low as they awaited their friends awakening.


End file.
